“No, thank you.” I sat next to my dad and squeezed his taped hands.
Ahem-ing pointedly, Missy motioned to the shackles attached to my chair. I reluctantly snapped them around my wrists and jangled them, hoping Dick could discern the noise—surely he had to recognize it.
“Well, aren’t you the tricky one?” Missy said, pouting prettily. “Do you know how much trouble I’ve gone to just to get your attention? I used my powers to track you, followed you around. I lured that idiot Walter back to the scene of your pathetic fight, killed him to get the council to watch you. I played those stupid pranks on you, watched your house to make you feel uneasy, painted your car, put a little something extra in your doggie’s bowl. Hell, I even shot at you.”
“Shot me,” I corrected her as Mama shrieked under her gag. “You actually shot me, and it hurt, quite a bit.”
“Aw, shug, don’t take it personally. It’s not like I left any permanent scars. I just wanted to make you desperate enough, paranoid enough, to want to leave town. Whether it was to get away from the council or whoever you thought was out to get you, I didn’t care. I figured, since you don’t like your sister anyway and we’re such good girlfriends, you’d sell me the property and leave. But you just wouldn’t budge. So I stepped it up, set my precious Dickie’s trailer on fire, framing you for his murder so I could challenge you.
But then he intervened, and the council let you walk away scot-free. Nothing has worked, Jane. Nothing. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?”
“I knew it!” I yelled. “I knew all that random stuff couldn’t happen to one person!”
“Well, subtlety has never been my strong suit,” she said, smirking as she sipped a virulently pink cocktail.
From inside the model home, I heard a voice call, “Missy? Are you out back?”
“It seems our last guest has arrived.” Missy smirked. “I believe you two know each other.”
“Jenny?” I yelled as my sister stepped out on onto the deck. “Run, Jenny, get out of here!”
“Why?” Jenny asked. “Wait, why are y’all tied up? Missy, what’s going on here?”
“You know her?” I demanded.
“Yes, I know her. Missy’s in my Thursday night scrapbooking group.”
“Oh, of course she is.” I groaned.
“This isn’t what we talked about, Missy,” Jenny said, staring at our bound parents.
“What do you mean, what you talked about?” I demanded. “You do know she’s a vampire, right?”
“Oh, sure.” Jenny rolled her eyes. “Like I’d spend Thursday nights scrapbooking with a vampire.”
In the calmest tone I could muster, I said, “Jenny, I’ve been waiting for a really long time to say this to you. You’re a moron.”
Jenny ignored me. “Jane, what exactly have you gotten us into?”
“I’ll answer that,” Missy said sweetly, just before punching Jenny.
“I’m not going to say that bothered me,” I told Missy as she hog-tied my dazed sister.
“I thought as much.” Missy offered a vicious grin as she shoved the gag into Jenny’s mouth. She turned to me and put on her “sales face.” “Jane, have you ever had a vision?”
“I had a reaction to antibiotics when I was five and saw tigers jumping out of the walls,” I offered.
“A vision,” Missy repeated, obviously annoyed. “The ability to anticipate future events and possibilities. The ambition to better oneself through the pursuit of an ideal, a goal. Vision, honey. So few people have it, living or undead. Even fewer appreciate it.
Imagine my irritation when I see someone like you with a beautiful piece of property like River Oaks.” She tinkled, her laugh hard-edged. “Did you know that I own every little bit of property surrounding your acreage? I’ve been buying it up, a piece at a time, for almost ten years now. In fact, I own quite a bit of property in this end of the state. The old-money vampires can’t seem to hold on to it. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that I tricked them into selling or killed them in battle.”
Missy bent so we were nose to nose, tilting her head so she could give me a winning smile.
“Real estate is the one thing you can always count on, Jane. It’s eternal, just like we are. Gold, jewels, stocks, bonds, they can fail you. But the one thing people can’t live without is land.”
“Do you realize you based your whole evil life philosophy on a quote from Lex Luthor?” I asked. “How has the council not caught on to this?”
“Oh, the council’s not nearly as all-seeing as it likes to believe.” She sighed, toying with the tiny umbrella in her glass. “I have little helpers who claim the property for me, for a fee, and a few low-level council minions who turn a blind eye to loose ends, for a fee. I guess subtlety is my strong suit.”
“You want to move into River Oaks?”
“Oh, no, I want to knock River Oaks into the ground,” she said, standing with some ceremony and whipping the cover off the easel. “Jane, I give you my vision.”
A disturbingly pert sign read, “Half-Moon Meadows, a gated community for the undead,” and showed a pale, sophisticated-looking couple enjoying a glass of blood on their front porch. Different graphics showed sketches of a clubhouse, a trendy bar, a blood bank, a spa, a dentist’s office.
“What. The. Hell.” I gaped. Jenny made similarly distressed noises.
“Isn’t it fabulous?” Missy squealed. “I had planned to start a gated suburb for the living, but then I was turned, and I was struck by the lack of specialized housing for vampires. Realtors just can’t resist a hole in the market, Jane. Half-Moon Meadows will be the first community of its kind. Vampires from all over the world will come to our corner of paradise for a community that provides for their every need, every whim. If they never want to venture out into the living world again, they won’t have to.”
When I didn’t applaud her brilliance, Missy continued, “My Deer Haven complex is just the beginning. All I need is your teeny little plot right in the center there,” she said, pointing to an aerial view of the planned development. “I tried to talk your aunt Jettie into selling, but the old bat was so stubborn! When she died, I spent months trying to come up with the right way to approach you, to get you to sign it over. And then you were turned.
It was a sign, Jane. I had a reason to meet you, the means to follow you, a way to cause…complications for you. Hell, I even went to Thursday night scrapbooking parties just to cozy up to your sister. Jenny is not a fan of yours, by the way.”
I glared at my sister, who refused to meet my gaze.
Missy sneered. “Get a couple of margaritas in her, and she becomes quite the Chatty Cathy. She’s been coming to me for advice on how to whisk that house out from under you, what with my real-estate expertise and all. She came here tonight thinking I’d come up with some way of forcing you into signing it over for tax reasons. You know, she’s been feeding me information about you for months. Your schedules, your habits, your friends’ names, your favorite foods. Of course, she didn’t realize all of that had changed, because she’s too damn dumb to figure out you’re a vampire, but it was a good start.
“And now, it’s time for the final act, Jane. I tried playing nice. I tried playing dirty.
And now I’m going to play rough. I’ll say you came after me in a jealous rage over Dickie, and I had to kill you in self-defense. And if the council doesn’t believe that, I’ll just keep talking until I find a story they do believe. You’d be amazed at what I can do to sell a story.”
For a long time, I stared at Missy, unable to absorb what she’d said. “Let me get this straight. You tried to kill me so you could build a tacky planned community? That is just evil. I’m so going to kick your ass…just as soon as I’m untied. And then, maybe, I’m going after Jenny.”
“It’s not tacky,” Missy hissed through clenched fangs. “It’s innovative.” She gripped her drink until the glass shattered in her hands, but she seemed to recover her composure as she flicked the shards away. “And technically, darling, you’re chained.”
Missy stepped over to my parents to adjust their bonds. She pinched my father’s cheek until I thought blood would well from under her nails and then slapped him lightly.
I growled, but she ignored me.
“Here’s the deal, Janie. When I dust you, I’ll gain control over River Oaks and everything you own. And then I’m going to kill your parents and your sister. And then I’m going after that boring ass of a husband and her imbecile children so there are no living heirs to claim River Oaks. That’s the difference between you and me, Jane. I don’t sit around whining and waiting for something to happen. I see what I want, and I take it.”
“Look, this entire deck is made of wood. Just stake me and get it over with so I don’t have to listen to any more evil-overlord speeches.” I grumbled under my breath, “Two-bit dyed-blond social-climbing huckster.”
Missy whirled on me, her face twisted with rage. “What did you say?”
She took a step toward me. Seeing that, I said, “Bottled blonde.”